Found: One Soul Owner: Tony Stark
by Late For The Sky
Summary: Pepper doesn't see Tony's dæmon until about a month or so after she starts working for him. Movie Verse!Iron Man w/daemons AU. Fusion with the "His Dark Materials" 'Verse.


Pepper doesn't see Tony's dæmon until about a month or so after she starts working for him. She's figured out that his dæmon must be something small, able to hide up a sleeve or in a pocket. Pepper's own Devonal will never be able to do that; putting a brindle greyhound in one's pocket is, after all, rather hard to do. All the pictures and video clips Pepper's been able to find don't show Tony's dæmon, but Pepper notes that Tony will occasionally brush a hand over his suit collar as he speaks, even when it's perfectly straight. That's where Tony's dæmon must like to rest, able to hear her person's voice and see what's going on from a relatively high vantage point.

Pepper is tempted to ask Obadiah or JARVIS about Tony's dæmon, but Devonal convinces her to leave it be. "We'll see her eventually," he says one day as Pepper is working on organizing Tony's schedule for the coming weekend. "I can always smell her, so she's there."

"What does she smell like?" Pepper asks, pausing in her attempts to balance out Tony's work and public appearances.

"Cool," Devonal says finally, "and dry. I think she might be an insect or reptile of some sort."

Pepper files this tidbit away for later perusal and then continues on with her work. It's later that night that she finally sees Tony's dæmon, though it's not the first time she's met him at his sprawling Malibu home. Her high heels seem loud on the hard floor, with Devonal's carefully clipped nails providing a faint echo as he walks. JARVIS directs them to Tony's basement workshop, where Tony is working on one of his cars.

Pepper's not used to seeing Tony in casual clothes, so the sight of her boss in grease-stained jeans and an old MIT t-shirt throws her off balance for a moment. Regaining her composure, Pepper knocks on the glass separating her from Tony, but he doesn't look up. The thrum of a heavy bass beat tells Pepper all she needs to know: Tony can't hear her over his music.

"JARVIS, could you kill the music and then let me in?" Pepper asks the ever-present AI, not quite sure if she has the authority to enter Tony's private space.

"Of course, Miss Potts," JARVIS replies, and does so. The door slides open, admitting Pepper into blesséd silence. Tony looks up from the engine of his hot rod, confusion briefly wrinkling his brow at the sudden absence of his music before he spots Pepper.

"Did you turn off my music?" he asks, picking up a nearby rag and wiping the engine grease from his hands.

"Well, technically JARVIS did, but I asked him to," Pepper says with a slight smile. She hasn't spotted Tony's dæmon yet, but that doesn't matter right at the moment.

"Oh. What do you need, Pepper?" Tony says, throwing the dirty rag into a nearby bin. He misses, but ignores it in favor of getting a bottle of water from the mini fridge. As he raises the chilled bottle to his lips, Pepper idly notices the odd-looking copper armband around his left forearm, and then does a double-take. That's not an armband. It's a dæmon.

Tony notices Pepper's reaction and glances down at his arm. He sets the water down on a nearby tool-cart and lifts his arm. "This," he says as the slender snake unwraps herself from his arm and looks up at Pepper, "is Keshsara."

Keshsara is not a solid copper color, as Pepper initially thinks, but a sort of dusty copper mixed with a faint silver that's tempered with brown. There are darker browns and metallic colors mixed in there as well, and Pepper can see that Keshsara shares the same shade of dark brown eyes with Tony. Devonal moves forward and gives Keshsara a polite sniff before stepping back to his habitual place at Pepper's side.

"Pleased to finally meet you," Pepper says, because she is nothing if not polite. She looks up at Tony with a slight smile. "She's beautiful."

To her surprise, Tony looks mildly startled, as if he hasn't been told this very often. "Thanks," he says, Keshsara climbing up his arm and then looping herself gently around his neck. It makes Tony look like he's wearing an odd sort of necklace, but neither dæmon nor man seem to mind. "So, what did you need?"

"Hmm? Oh, right," Pepper says, blushing a bit at getting distracted by her admittedly handsome boss and his pretty dæmon. "I've got a few things that need your attention before the morning, and then I wanted to go over your schedule for the weekend."

Tony chuckles. "It's _Thursday_," he says, the corners of his eyes crinkling in his amusement. "I think we can relax a bit." He motions for Pepper to take a seat on a nearby chair. She does so, but not before checking to see if there's anything there to ruin her clothes. There isn't, so she takes the seat gratefully, sitting in the proper manner as befits a skirt-wearing lady that her grandmother taught her. She takes out the sheaf of papers from her carry bad and hands them to Tony.

"The first one is in regards to the deal with Lockheed Martin," Pepper says as Tony begins to skim through the paperwork. "They want twenty-nine units of the R-33s by next month, but Production says that might not be feasible. David Roberts wants your approval to step up production."

Tony snorts softly. "Why bring this to me and not Obie?"

"Well, first of all..."

As Pepper begins to explain the complexities of the situation, she finds herself relaxing more and more in Tony's presence, until Devonal, who has been sitting straight-backed next to her chair all this time, lays down on the floor, the very picture of a calm and content soul.

**A/N:** Note: Keshsara is a Rosy Boa, while Devonal is a Brindle Greyhound. As far as I know, I'm the first to do this kind of AU in the Iron Man 'Verse. Shiny.


End file.
